The Tragedy Of Darth Plagueis The Wise
by Darth Chronolis
Summary: The story behind the legendary Sith Lord Darth Plagueis. Story now complete. Apologies to everyone it took so long!
1. Prologue: The Cosmic Symphony

**The Tragedy Of Darth Plagueis The Wise**

**Prologue: The Cosmic Symphony**

I was conditioned to believe that the world was flat and that the sky was merely a tent, with hanging lanterns in a formation that was no more than a pattern created by the great hawkmen of the sky, and that the sky itself was impenetrable by mortal beings. As for beneath us, the ground was a punishment for the non-believers in this life, and that subhumans already existed there, in a watery domain that was the transition point between this world and Purgatory. These Gungans, as they were called, were still in a position to repent and redeem themselves, before they made their final voyage into the fiery underworld.

These were all stories told to me by the Krelli monks. For a time I regarded them almost as family, but I soon came to know their only desire was to suppress knowledge and ambition.

They seemed to think that ignorance was paradise, and that unlocking the secrets of the world destroyed its wonder. They refused to accept that those candles in the sky were the furnaces that created all the complex molecules and that any molecule could be transmuted to another, and as I found out as I learned more that every molecule, whether a particle of light, a gravity molecule or a molecule of the strong nuclear force or the antigravity force that caused the universe to expand, not to mention THE force which has been a major part of my life, was in fact a one-dimensional string, coiled in a way that produced almost the equivalent of a musical note, that played a part in a greater cosmological symphony.

Maybe you think you know me, maybe you don't. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Darth Plagueis, and this is my story.

Will be continued soon….


	2. The Krelli Order

**Chapter 1: The Krelli Order**

They were like animals. I'd been exploring the caves north of the Dune Sea and I was confronted by these masked demons in sand coloured suits. They had no sophisticated weaponry but I was sure I would never survive against the fighting sticks they used. I really wished I had one of those "light guns" that those travellers carry with them, but you would end up having to fight your way through monsters like these just to get hold of one.

I thought then, why couldn't I simply think those scum to death? I imagined the ringleader of the Tusken gang simply choking and falling in the ground, and remarkably, he started reaching for his throat. This momentarily distracted the other Tuskens and I quickly thought of some other way I could subdue the rest. I raised my fist against one and blue bolts of lightning started emanating from it and the Tusken was consumed with blue fire. As my anger grew I shot the lightning into the other sandmen until there was nothing but ashes left of them.

Having thought I had scored an easy victory, an aircraft of some kind landed behind me. I was prepared in case it was more of these sandmen, but I was sure they never used flying machines. Several cloaked figures emerged and the lead one, a bearded figure, said, "You must learn to control your anger. We are the Krelli order, and we are here to save you"

The next memory was a bit fuzzy, but he offered me some kind of lemon- flavoured drink, and after this everything faded to black and I woke up…

…In a palatial building in the middle of a forest. At the time I thought I'd come to a great new home. The bearded persons name I understood was Bail Kenobi. He seemed a kind old man, but I always thought there was something a bit missing from his life.

I always enjoyed going out on the steamboat down lake Yoda, where we would go spotting the local wildlife. If we were lucky we'd see one of those weird part-wolf, part fish creatures with no ears that would clap their fins together to get our attention.

All along, Mr Kenobi would keep telling me these tales of the hawkmen in the sky who always looked after us, and yet, one day, when I saw some kind of demon rise from the ocean to slaughter one of these earless creatures I asked why these hawkmen would want to create the world this way.

"They move in mysterious ways", he said. But I began understanding that no mystery can ever not be unravelled, and to all things there was an answer. I really knew that they weren't enhancing their lives by believing in these hawkmen: they were merely suppressing it.

I had turned twelve that year, and was really ready to go into adulthood and start living my own way. But in addition to the problem that I knew this Hawkmen belief was pure rubbish, I knew that Mr Kenobi had some secret he was hiding, and possibly an unexplained motivation for his entire Krelli religion.


	3. Phantom Encounter

Chapter 2: Phantom Encounter 

One night I managed to sneak out without any of these monks breathing down my neck and this was when I encountered a curious vision: a kind of red-tinged skull in a dark-coloured cloak. At first I thought this was some bizarre Krelli monk cloak for some unusual ritual but when he introduced himself, I realised he had very little connection with the Krelli.

"My ordinary name is Klantral, but you can call me Darth Hadrol", the stranger introduced himself.

"You have made a comfortable home with the Krelli monks, but as long as you follow them you will never develop any real potential.

He then continued explaining how the flat world idea taught by the Krelli was all wrong – that the hawkmen they spoke of were not living Gods, but technological flying transport devices designed to travel from world to world, and that many of the stars in the sky were places where other worlds orbited, and these worlds were round, not flat. The idea of a round habitat seemed impossible – surely all its inhabitants would simply float off into space? But he explained how there isn't simply an up and down. The universe was governed by what used to be a unified FORCE, which soon after the universe's beginning split into several distinct forces – the gravitational force that stopped anything accidentally floating away from a planet's surface, the nuclear forces that allowed fusion to create energy within stars that harboured these planets, the electromagnetic force that allowed the transmission of light from these stars, and another unnamed force that gave Darth Hadrol's people, the Sith, their power, for many abilities, some of which, he explained, may be considered unnatural.

"You've lost someone, or you are losing some one aren't you?" I asked Bail. I knew there was definitely something he was hiding.

"Okay, maybe you are old enough to know. I'd always kept my wife Jaina out of people's view, in case it disturbed anyone".

I really lost control at this point

"Why do you have to suppress what is real? Jaina is the woman you love. Everything about this place – it's all false. You deny you abilities, you deny science, you deny love and you deny life. What have you been doing with your life? You basically keep her in this prison, just to keep this whole place looking like some multi-coloured paradise. Your entire existence is based around an invented fantasy to replace what you view as the brutal reality of life. But you don't realise, that however brutal reality is, it never needs to stay that way. A problem is never solved simply by denial of its existence."

"But we can only live on faith" he replied. And that's all we have to live on.

"Yeah, well I think someone needs a bit more to live on that that. I know you've already tried to change some thing. She's pregnant isn't she? And the baby isn't going to survive with you just sitting about preying to those hawkmen all day".

"And just what do you think would help her survive?"

I kind of knew how to answer this, but was a bit perplexed. I didn't say anything at this point. I simply concentrated. Concentrated on the double-helical structure of her DNA and the destroyed molecule receptors. Darth Hadrol had told me how it seemed the DNA divisions had a fundamental flaw that every time they divided, the essential receptors for the molecules that caused motion were degrading. But my attention was taken elsewhere. It seemed that inn a set of genes that didn't seem to serve any purpose. Later on I would be told that that was regarded as "junk DNA" and would eventually be understood to be coded sequences called midi-chlorians – forms of primitive intelligence coded by biology's universal computer code. The main thing I knew was that with a few changes of configurations of this code the DNA could replace all the functions of the main DNA.

For what must have been the first time for a long while, Jaina Kenobi awoke. When I saw Bail and Jaina together I was so glad they realised that there was far more to life that they realised. He just didn't seem to understand that with everything we've achieved, we could basically write a new script for the world. Like with the analogy of one-dimensional strings being the notes for a symphony of the universe. Well, who wrote the symphony? No one did. But perhaps we could.

From than on Mr Kenobi seemed to accept a lot more ideas. He became more detached from the other monks and seemed less interested in their rituals, but he and Jaina had stayed there too long to completely separate from the Krelli order. This was the only home they could ever adjust to.

Four months later, they gave birth to a baby boy, called Arna. But by this time I seemed to drift apart from that family, and Hadrol, who I would always meet twice a week one hour after midnight, replaced Bail as a father figure. Over time Hadrol explained more about his background – how he still regards his home planet as Korriban, which is now mainly ruins but still contains much significance for him. Also how his skull mask was one that was once owned by a previous Sith Lord called Darth Nihilis.

One of the first few lessons Hadrol taught me involved this completely impossible weapon. He had already explained that the "light guns" I had on occasion seen in action were generated by focusing light waves or infrared through a gas so as to focus them to lethal intensity, but this other weapon seemed similar and yet it was just a beam of red light that would simply stop when it reached a metre out the "cannon", if it could be called as such. To add further confusion he produced a further device and "clanged" the two together in a manner that laser beam or streams of plasma energy could not do. In a completely suicidal move he set down on the ground several automatic cannons, which fired a mixture of plasma energy, projectile weapons and some even firing conventional laser beams, which were inexplicably deflected by the stream of energy from this "lightsabre" as he called the weapon. He told me how they used to be regarded as ancient weapons that were sometimes even laughed at, but in fact the technology used to produce them required altering photon molecules at the sub molecular level, so that they would behave very differently from the ones we are familiar with.

"This weapon must never leave your side as long as you live", he advised as he handed me one of the lightsabres, "And this is where your journey begins".

A further four years later, Hadrol seemed to have mysteriously persuaded the Krelli to let me leave, and simply accepted that now I had reached the age of 16 standard years, which many cultures regarded as the age of maturity, I was free to travel as I pleased. Hadrol took me to Korriban, where I was introduced to the ancient tombs of Sith Lords from millennia ago. Many dated back to before the Sith ever used the Darth title that Hadrol had, but nowadays it was up to the master to appoint his apprentice with a "Darth" title at some stage in theory teaching. So he thought to use a variation of my name, Syfo Dyas, as part of my title…

Darth Sidious.

I never thought, however, that this title suited, and I would rather use one more appropriate to my unusual ability to reverse debilitating disease by the force of will…

Darth Plagueis.

After two years on Korriban, I began feeling urges to return to Naboo, and made regular return visits to the Krelli village, as if I was able to sense the scourge that was soon to approach their world…


	4. Black Sun Eclipse

Chapter 3: Black Sun Eclipse 

_Scorlan:_

I had to take this chance, because I knew no one was going to give it to me. I was one of the few volunteers in the Republic Fleet for this complete suicide mission. Black Sun, on this particular mission ruled by one of their most feared commanders, Trokinsis, had come out of their shadows and chosen to invade Naboo, the planet they assumed was harbouring some kind of elite Jedi order. They were wrong of course, as they were with everything, but at least this time they had provided us with a rope to hang them with.

It didn't help however, that Coruscant's military command could not be bothered sending a larger fleet out this far, expecting this to be a very minor skirmish, and instead chose to use a few small star bases that were within close hyperdrive range of the area.

Naboo's defences were laughably bad, but at least they had created force fields around all their potential targets, so that the Black Sun could not just simply subject them to an orbital bombardment. So at least they couldn't do much damage until they were fairly near to the ground.

Black Sun's new viper fighters were only designed mainly for use in space whereas our new Q-wing fighters firstly had a robust shape, being saucer-shaped without any major weak points, and were also far more adjusted to atmospheric manoeuvres, with them having a rotating underbelly with many rows of vanes, giving them aerodynamic uplift instead of the fragile propellers or wings of most of the potential air vehicles we would be likely to encounter. But never mind what we could achieve in the atmosphere. To begin with we outnumbered them ten to one. Now there were 20 of us against a fleet of 500 vipers. But to me a large concentration of vipers only meant more targets.

_Black Sun:_

"The plan seems to be succeeding, Commander Trokinsis," Lt Golnar advised from his viper. "The Republic have only had a token force within easy hyperdrive range of Naboo and this tiny fleet looks easier to defeat than the pathetic out-dated Naboo defences".

"You have done well," Commander Trokinsis replied through the comlink from his ship, "Keep your fleet in orbit as much as possible, and don't attempt to go up against any of the ground forces until the Republic fleet has been dealt with. Afterwards I will take this carrier ship to the planet's capital city Theed and see personally to its capture. It is unlikely that any senior political figures will remain there during the invasion but it will be a psychological blow".

In reality through Trokinsis saw this as a bad move for Black Sun, overtly attacking a whole planet while they were used to operating in the shadows. The high command in Black Sun seemed not to know what they were doing, but he would ensure that, being chosen as the one to lead this attack, he would use the situation to his full advantage, even if he personally would be the only one to benefit.

_Scorlan:_

My strategy was to break off from the main fleet then cut a hole right the way through theirs. By flying right through the middle of them they had severe problems aiming at me without shooting at their own ships. They must have lost around a 100 fighters at this point, a few of which were due to them accidentally shooting at their own side. As they obviously knew I was a threat, I knew they would chase me wherever I went, so I had a to ensure I led them to where I wanted them, in other words, into Naboo's atmosphere.

This would not perhaps seem to be the most sensible idea as that was exactly where they wanted to go. At least I would ensure that they were as far as possible from their intended targets.

On entry into the atmosphere I levelled the craft out, and they were coming into firing range they were obviously expecting me to swerve upwards, but instead I brought the Q-wing's forward motion to a complete stop, and set the rotating lower section of the craft to put it into a vertical take off, a move that virtually no airborne craft are nowadays designed to do, so that the vipers simply flew underneath me whilst I was able to fire plasma discharges downwards at them all. I managed to take out all but around 40 of them with this manoeuvre. As the confused remains of their fleet turned round I use used the forwards cannons to destroy around 10 of them in a fraction of a second, and for the remaining 30 I fired as many seekers to take care of them.

The rest of my fleet were possibly all dead now, but I knew my priority was the planet's population. The nearest target I would be able to defend from here would be the Krelli village. My radar detected no airborne vehicles near there, so at least there was a chance I would get there first.

When I reached there, there were several spider-like walking tanks firing towards the shield generators, but in seconds the tanks were less than pools of molten metal, as there was no way they could outmanoeuvre an aerial attack from a Q-wing. At this point I would need to be on my guard for any ground troops using more stealthy means of sabotaging the shield generators.

Sure enough, there were several carrying some rather heavy, probably nuclear, explosives. Fortunately they did not have the will to simply detonate it there and then, which would sacrifice them in the process. The curious thing was that the only person defending the area was what appeared to be a Jedi Knight, except carrying red lightsabre, in the style the Sith used to carry. . Before the two assassins knew what was happening this "Jedi" decapitated them both and caused the bomb to float off, slowly and safely.

About ten of them in response came out of the forest and I shot 3 of them and held fire as the Jedi deflected the blaster shots from them and sabred through them all as if they were paper.

"My name is Syfo Dyas" the young Jedi introduced himself, "I had hoped to be assisted by my instructor but since the invasion started there has been no sign of him".

"And I am Scorlan", I replied, "We can't wait for any further assistance as the Republic Fleet in orbit above Naboo, capital City, Theed, had been almost completely destroyed. The Black Sun fleet will be less than a minute from being able to breach the city."

I would need this person's help, especially as it seemed as if he could single-handedly defend the city again against an army of hundreds. Fortunately the Q-wing had an additional seat which would normally be required if it was used on a bombing mission. During the journey I also noticed a large carrier whip in orbit above heed, no doubt the one under the command of Trokinsis, that would be dropping in soon.

At Theed what few guards there were had all been killed. My wrist-based radar receiver, which was coupled up to the radar on the Q-wing was picking up 48 Black Sun operatives in the area. I suggested at this point we split up at this point, and if we survived this we would swap outfits with the operatives, as no doubt as soon as they saw us, they would alert their colleagues everywhere to be on the lookout for a Jedi and someone in a republic pilot uniform.

I picked up 6 life signs around the corner and after shooting one in the back, I picked off the other 5 before they could react. At this point I saw that all the other life signs were gone. Could Syfo Dyas really have killed them all that quickly? As planned I swapped outfits with one of the operatives and through my comlink asked Dyas to meet me to find an abandoned air car, and meet me at the Northern part of a city, where I could see a star descend, which would surely be the carrier under the command of Trokinsis.

_Black Sun, on board Trokinsis' carrier ship:_

"At this stage do not use heavy weaponry against the city", Trokinsis' voice boomed through the ship's loudspeakers. "We need to search for anything that we can use to bargain with. Only after that, will the city no longer be of any use to us. We should not meet with any resistance here as there are only 2 life signs, which both appear to carrying Black Sun transponders, so they are likely to be ours."

Sixty troops entered the city in 6 separate speeder tanks. One group went in search of the two survivors…

_Scorlan:_

I suggested at this point we split up again, when I picked up the sixty life signs coming to the city. I figured we seemed to be able to do more damage separately, and it would also encourage them to split their forces up.

_Black Sun:_

Ten operatives broke into Theed' palace, the seat of power on Naboo. Here they would attempt to access any valuable computer records for the planet. The expert hacker, Relus, was the one to lead this. However, when he reached the main archive room, he was surprised that Commander Trokinsis had chosen to meet them there.

"We're nearly finished here," Trokinsis told them. "I have no doubt that you will be able to break into the…"

Rather than finish his sentence, Trokinsis shot all ten of them. No reaction time could prepare them to be assassinated by their own Commander in the middle of supposedly congratulating them on their mission's success. Now, any victory Black Sun may have scored would belong to Trokinsis alone.

_Scorlan:_

It was the ideal deception. No one would ever suspect that Commander Trokinsis was in fact the same person as myself, Scorlan. No one in Republic Intelligence had ever seen the face of Trokinsis and by the end of the day any Black Sun operative who knew this would be dead, and any other possible witnesses would never be taken seriously by the Republic.

I suspected this Jedi must be some kind of Sith. He Could be of some assistance for my long term plans.

_Darth Plagueis:_

Scorlan told me the remarkable story of he used to be a Black Sun operative but 2 years ago had defected to the Republic, but at the same time was infiltrating Black Sun, and not even Coruscant Intelligence knew that he was posing as the feared Black Sun Commander, Trokinsis. He explained that the carrier ship was fully loaded but would not be doing anything until the Republic cavalry was arriving, as no one in the carrier ship would do anything without his orders. He had even sabotaged the ship so that none of the entrances would open without HIS Remote command.

At this point I could feel a familiar presence from the ship, and when I looked into the distance I saw a red glow cutting through the side of the ship and a dark figure I was sure I recognised emerging.

"I must advise," Scorlan explained, "Black Sun were being assisted by a Sith Lord, one who you may be familiar with. Right now I will have to swap uniforms with one of the dead guards and take on a new identity again. I will seek a career in the Naboo military and publicly you must now know me by my new pseudonym, Cosan Palpatine."


	5. Hadrol's Deception

**Chapter 4: Hadrol's Deception**

_Darth Plagueis:_

Palpatine, as I must know him, explained how he had some long-term plan regarding the corruption occurring in the Republic's senate. I have to admit, with his latest deception you just don't know where you stand with him, so it would be while before I knew if he could be trusted. His latest plan seemed fairly crazy, in which he would wait until the next wave of Republic forces arrive, then he would order the Black Sun forces to engage. This way, we would be seen to be engaging a superior force and would receive recognition in the Naboo military.

"The Republic fleet are descending into the atmosphere." Palpatine advised. "I will give the order now, and let Black Sun walk into our trap"

As their army ran into us most of them were cut down with my lightsabre blade. The rest were rather shocked to see their own commander shooting at them. The next wave of Republic fighters vaporised the operatives on the ground and about twenty of the fighters surrounded the landed carrier ship and gradually cut it into pieces. But for however formidable this wave of Republic forces was, I knew that the day belonged to us.

_Coruscant Intelligence HQ:_

Four bloodstained corpses occupied a deserted office in the suburbs of one of Coruscant's capital cites, one of whom had been accessing a now-deleted file of a plan to assassinate a certain agent who had served them well but outlived his usefulness. Their cause of death would never lead anyone towards the real culprit in this murder case, as an old-fashioned infrared laser cutter was not a weapon normally associated with a Sith.

_Palpatine:_

We were treated like heroes by the world's news service – the Jedi and the Naboo soldier who held off a whole legion of Black Sun operatives. In interviews I told them how I had great plans to rise in the Naboo military, and also how I would play an active role in ensuring that no out side invader would ever cause this level of carnage again. As many military records were destroyed on the invasion, no one would ever know that there no such soldier as a Cosan Palpatine, and no one would bat an eyelid at the explanations that my whole family and anyone I knew were all killed in the invasion. This way I could become a major respected public figure and at the same time a complete island of a man, a totally invisible person with no past and no background. From here I would eventually go into a political career, but to advance beyond this I would need assistance. I always knew I had a latent force ability, which caused me to become very accurate with the use of weapons, but I knew if I was ever to develop my abilities I could never consult the Jedi, as they would either try to make me become like them or do their best to never let me develop potential and to always watch my every move for the rest of my life. The next few days would decide who I would call on to assist me.

_Darth Plagueis:_

I knew at today's nightly meeting in the forest there would not be much conversation. I had only to let him incriminate himself and that would be the cue I needed.

"I know you were on that Black Sun carrier ship. You were helping their invasion and I need to know why "

"It was necessary." He explained, "I had to make the attempt to wipe out the Krelli order. Their desire to suppress knowledge will eventually lead them to discover and destroy the Sith. They would have killed you as soon as they found out you were learning the skills of the force. Believe me, I never expected you to be here as I thought you were still on Korriban at the time of the invasion."

"So that's it then? Despite being your apprentice you don't even trust me enough to tell me what you think is a good idea for the Sith order?"

I was sure I was the one who intended to draw my lightsabre first, but we pretty much both drew at the same time. Hadrol knew he had dug himself a hole too deep to come out of.

The battle seemed to go on for hours but we knew we were making moves ten times faster than any ordinary human could, were both able to slow time down so that we could more easily anticipate the situation. Finally I sliced the sabre downwards over his head to make it seem like I intended to slice him down the middle. As he moved upwards to parry the blow I moved my sabre out of the way and instead sliced from right to left to slice him in half. As the grisly severed torso landed on the ground I wasn't exactly eager to go anywhere near it but there was one more trophy I wanted to take, in addition to his lightsabre. I would now be the one to wear the mask of Darth Nihilis, and claim my title as the new master of the Sith.


	6. The New Master

**Chapter 5: The New Master**

_Palpatine:_

At the exact time I met with my future master, and it seemed almost as if he had prepared a test for me. That night I encountered the superficial appearance of Darth Hadrol, but I already had the ability to sense personalities to know that this was in fact Lord Plagueis, emerging victorious from the Sith master who betrayed him.

He would never know that all I cared about was which if the two won, which would prove to me which of the two, were stringer. He would never know that it was I who, by sensing the presence of a Sith Lord during my membership of Black Sun, was able to convince Darth Hadrol to carry out a move that would almost certainly bring him into conflict with his apprentice. I knew that by Sith tradition there were never more than two at any one time, and that for me to be one of those two, I would have to endure that one of the existing Sith was eliminated. I was not concerned which one would survive, only that it would be stronger of the two, and the stronger one would be the better one to teach me the ways of the Force.

"I congratulate you on your victory", I told him " I understand you have usurped the command of your traitorous master, and now you are the new Lord of the Sith".

_Darth Plagueis:_

For all of Palpatine's abilities he never struck me as someone who would be interested in the ways of the force, yet he claimed he had some kind of ability and needed someone to bring his abilities out. At this point I really didn't trust this person. But he allowed me to give him a kind of trial, whereby he would explain his long-term plans and why he felt there was a need to re-balance the force and change the way the Republic was governed. He made all sorts of preposterous claims about commercial organisations had somehow got the entire Senate in their pocket, and that industry had completely eroded the power of democracy. I really wondered what he was talking about, as on Naboo the only experience I'd had with business and finance were the various village markets on both Naboo and Tattooine, selling clothes and machinery on the streets, and negotiating fairly reasonable prices. To suggest that these types of people were galactic dictators seemed like compete lunacy.

But soon, my perceptions of this were turned upside-down…

Rather than taking me to some backwater world, where lawlessness was rife, like the first planet I remember, Tattooine, he showed me what was going on in the suburbs of Coruscant. Before going anywhere he requested I train him in a psychological cloaking ability I had acquired from my old master, which allows most weak-minded people to not even realise you are there. We followed someone into his apartment who was applying for employment through the Holonet and observed how he was being asked to agree to all sorts of ridiculous conditions – that he would agree to allow his company of employment to have insect-sized cameras following him all the time, to ensure that his behaviour at all times was compatible with the company's expectations.

We had visited about twenty different apartments that day, and each time we came across wilful volunteers to allow all sorts of horrific observational agreements assigned to themselves.

He agreed at this point to show me the nefarious hive of operations. Although most of the ordinary commercial work was carried out on Nemoidia, their more covert operations were carried out on the uninviting world of Mustafar.

When we arrived I knew why they chose this place. No one would send any form of inspectors to this world, which was continually turning itself inside out with volcanic activity.

Palpatine told me we would be very limited in what we could observe as the surveillance here was greater than anything the Republic could dream of. But at his point I would beg to differ. I was, after all the master rather than the apprentice.

"What are you doing?" He asked. "Their remote sensors will find us any second".

"You have to trust me " I answered, "If you want me to help you then you must realise I have the ability to stop these people. When you see that no ship locks onto us you will know that there is nothing they can do against us".

He seemed very reluctant to allow me to go any further but I convinced him that if we couldn't outsmart this enemy now that we could never beat them. Before he could even figure out where this commercial union hid their technological centre I felt I knew already. I seemed to be able to sense complex technology and even identify remotely if hat technology was good or evil. I showed him toward hat I felt was the inner sanctum of this Corporate Hell.

We were within a mile of their main factory but Palpatine dared go no further. I told him to go back to the ship, and that I would compete the journey. Foreseeing the Commercial Alliances' horrific surveillance techniques, I took my own visual recorder with me. On the way I played back a few of the recordings, of the funny creatures in Lake Yoda, of Bail Kenobi playing a bat-and-ball game with his son, then set it to record the shadowy activities in this factory. Any moment now I would be coming into range of its visual sensors, or maybe not.

Practising with my own camera, I was able to record objects that were not really there, and also to point it towards a volcano and ting into it to make it look as if I was recording a sunny desert. The n I tried the ultimate test, of pointing the recorder at myself and picking up nothing but a recording of what was behind me. Compared to getting into the inner workings of someone's DNA cycle, altering the inner workings of a simple machine seemed like child's play.

I cold almost visualise their video capture devices as a source of evils eyes, I could visualise when they would see me approaching them. I was then able to see through the eyes of these cameras and make them see what I wanted them to see

With very little effort I was able to walk amongst the workers of this factory. All along I observed a large screen that displayed what was going o in the factory and, as planned, I, oddly enough, did not appear on it, despite hundreds of cameras pointing at me at any one time.

This commercial organisation had sunken to new depths. As well as observational cameras they had been manufacturing all sorts of implants that would attach into people's glands and even their brains, to monitor their hormonal activity and in some cases even to control it. At his point, my hatred had taken away my mind-control. I had appeared on one of their sensors and every alarm went off. They had deployed a platoon of very brutish-looking guards who would be no more than a target to take out my aggression on. They were so easy to dispatch I was able during the fight to send a message to Palpatine to jam any transmissions that may leave this planet.

After killing al the guards I would not atop there. The Infiltrator ship, the Scimitar, we had brought with us had a good arsenal of nuclear warheads that would be sufficient to destroy all the rather unprotected factories that created this surveillance equipment. We left Mustafar, and whilst briefly uncloaking the Infiltrator ship, let loose several warheads towards strategic targets, converting the very factories into fiery decorations, that would add to the volcanic heat of this planet.

The ship we used that day would turn out to be our ideal weapon in the future. It was originally one that Palpatine had conned a secret shipbuilding company on some backwater planet into building under the supervision of an individual caller Raith Sienar. Soon after this escapade we named the ship the Scimitar.

Our little visit to Mustafar would disrupt the Commercial Alliance's plans for some years but I realised that we would need a long-term plan to restore democracy to the Republic and keep the commercial sectors under control. I knew we could never simply come out and tell everyone that we were the Sith and that we were now in control. We would always have to hide in the shadows or pretend to be something else. I told him how my time in the Krelli order meant that I could easily convince the Jedi order that I was wanting to join the Jedi Academy on Coruscant and could possibly rise to become a member of the Jedi council. Palpatine also seemed to think his career in the Naboo military meant that he could take up a successful political career and eventually become a senator with a great deal of influence, and that together we could convince the Republic to make a heavier stand against the Commercial Alliance. Palpatine also warned that the Commercial Alliance were also building up private armies and even getting droid manufacturing industries to experiment with dedicated combat droids, and that it would eventually be necessary to convince the Republic to develop a fearsome military deterrent.


	7. Departure From Naboo

**Chapter 6: Departure From Naboo**

I had to explain to Bail Kenobi that I had made my decision to join the Jedi. He wasn't quite as disappointed as some of the Krelli would be, but he was still committed to staying in the village with his people, as he could not handle any other lifestyle.

On Coruscant it was quite easy to get in contact with the Jedi Temple. I advised I was the Krelli who had successfully fought off the Black Sun invasion and they invited me round straight away. On arrival a woman in her mid-thirties called Nari Gallia came to greet me. She showed me around all the various training programs, which included children attempting to deflect bots from floating droids whilst blindfolded, and various interesting acts of levitation. There were also many practicing with imitation lightsabres in their combat techniques. But the one to top it all was one taking place in this larger arena, where we watched through a window that was small enough so as not to distract them too much. One of the combatants was someone slightly older than myself with swept-back hair and a stubbly beard, who was using sabre with a modified handle with a pistol-like grip to give him more manoeuvrability. But the opponent was a strange-looking green creature only about a third of the other man's height, and yet he was running rings round the taller man.

After they finished up I was introduce to them. The taller man was called Dooku and the short green man turned out to be Master Yoda, who was almost the unofficial head of the Jedi council and regarded as the most formidable Jedi alive. I would find out in time that that lake on Naboo was indeed named after him.

Yoda seemed to regard me with a bit of apprehension at first, and seemed to be assessing me somehow.

"From the Krelli order on Naboo you learned your skills, hmm. Begin learning Jedi skills at your age good idea normally not, but skills good perhaps you have learned on Naboo."

I was fortunate that he seemed to know as little about the Krelli order as he did about how to arrange his vocabulary. I should be able to convince him that everything I had learned from the Krelli, which I had in fact learned from Darth Hadrol, would prepare me to quickly join their ranks.

"A newly graduated Jedi Master I have assigned you," Yoda continued, "Your Master, Naria Gallia, will be".

Over the next few weeks Naria seemed to realise that I needed less training than they would realise, and the Master would quickly surpass the Master.

I also became one of the few to develop a good strategy using one lightsabre in each hand. This came about mainly because I was forced to have to build myself an extra blue lightsabre so they wouldn't associate me with the Sith in any way. This started me off practising in front of a mirror, until I eventually built another extra blue lightsabre and another extra red one, so as to suit every occasion.

The impression I had of the Jedi was not as bad as I first thought before I got to know them, but I knew things had to be changed with them. They were simply too set in their ways – the way they were obsessed that one Master would take on one apprentice, the way the Jedi had to relinquish much in the way of possessions and even avoid relationships.

The man Dooku I had met when I first came to the Jedi Temple – he also shared a lot of my views, and could help us reshape the inadequacies of the Republic and the Jedi Order.

Over the following Palpatine and I kept our plans mainly dormant and pursued our own "legitimate" careers. I soon gained the title of Jedi Master and even took on a Jedi apprentice called Jorus C'Baoth. Dooku chose a teenage apprentice who had just graduated from the "Younglings" called Qui-Gon Jinn. The four of us all had varying degrees of dissatisfaction in the Jedi order but I would have to be careful about who and how many allies I would choose. I was finding increasingly less time in training Palpatine in his use of the Force but he seemed to be coming on in leaps and bounds even when I was not around.

Palpatine also chose to take on the Darth title, which I had originally turned down – Sidious. This would perhaps suit his sometimes very INsidious personality.


	8. The New Mandalorian Wars

Chapter 7: The New Mandalorian Wars 

_Palpatine:_

15 years after my performance during Black Sun's invasion of Naboo I retired from the Naboo military as a general to move into active politics. I had successfully convinced their government to increase the planet's military so that they could never again come close to total defeat like that. I set myself up initially as an office worker for the council of the City of Kaidal. Setting myself up as a candidate, I was soon selected as their Parliamentary Representative. A further 6 years after that I became Governor of the State of Tharala.

_Syfo Dyas, One year before Palpatine's rise to the rank of Governor _

I didn't need an invitation. I somehow knew that Arna Kenobi's wife Jaralla was due to give birth to a son. However I may not be gong to meet with a happy occasion in this case. I could foresee the deaths of both the mother and the child, due to their insistence on having a natural birth and not allowing the use of any modern medical technology.

As I reached the Birthing Hall in the Krelli Village they would obviously not let me in but I believed I could influence things from afar. The presence of a life that was about to merge into two lives caused a very strong surge ion the force, and I was able to concentrate on this and focus on the energies created by the midichlorians in the mother and child's DNA to strengthen the life force in them.

The hour arrived and Bail Kenobi greeted me at the entrance and took us to where the mother was resting.

She was too tired to speak but Arna told me how they feared they would lose the child, and so had chose to name the baby after a word that in an old Naboo language meant "miracle"…

Obi-Wan.

_Palpatine, 3 years after the birth of Obi-Wan Kenobi:_

I knew the time had some to cause a crisis in the Republic to move my plans further. The Republic only seemed to hide its ineffectiveness by simply not even trying to make any major achievement or advance any cause. This time they would be forced to deal with the situation, and flounder.

The former, well, former in the eyes of the Republic that is, Mandalorian world of Concord Dawn would be where the seeds of dissension would begin. Here I arranged a supposedly diplomatic mission between myself Tralkor Sennus, who was the President of their world's largest alliance of nations and was tipped to be their first world leader in a proposed world government. I however would offer him something much greater. The chance to become leader of the 82 reunited Mandalorian worlds. It may have seemed impossible for this small number of worlds to pull off from the much greater Republic. Many of their citizens saw the Mandalorian era as an old legend of the past, and on a full scale war the 82 world would be like a feather against a hurricane when compared to the Republic.

The main motivation for wanting to form their own empire was due to their glory days thousands of years ago, which ended in a war between the Mandalorians and the Republic, in which the Mandalorians were defeated. It was a small, but string, minority who would do anything to go back to their Golden Age. Another obvious advantage would be the fact that the Jedi would be their mortal enemy, with them having playing such a big part in the fall of the Mandalorians. And the enemy of my enemy would be what I would consider a friend.

I however would advise him on how the right attacks in the right places would cave the Republic in. Two of his top generals, Jaster Mereel and Jingar Fett, backed me up on this and convinced him this would be possible.

_Syfo Dyas:_

By this time I had become a well-respected Jedi Master and had been made a member of the Jedi council.

In the Jedi temple I was duelling with Jorus C'Baoth when a crystalline aircraft that didn't seem to be designed for air travel at all appeared at the window. Before anything untoward could happen I was able to telekinetically activate the Temple's shields and as the craft fired into the shield ineffectively the anti-aircraft cannon swung round but could not lock onto this target. Fighters were scrambled but this... thing was able to outmanoeuvre even the best Jedi pilots.

I raced to where the gun turret was and knocked the Jedi on guard out of the way. I knew that he was avoiding operating the cannon as it had to point towards where the main city was, and so would cause much damage if it were to miss. But I knew I could make this shot count. I fire just below the ship's engine and it its crew bailed out as it crashed into the ground. It looked like they were quite ready for a pitched battle though as they all had jetpacks and was making their way to the upper floors. Outside the Q-wing fighters were successfully engaging the other Mandalorian fighters but again, pretty much every ship was spitting out a bunch of jetpack-equipped warriors.

I abandoned the cannon and went to where 3 of them were cutting their way in through one of the upper windows. As soon as I got in the room there was already one Jedi that had died failing to block the Mandalorian's blaster bolts, even though he was only up against three of them. I had a better chance against them though. Whilst telekinetically chocking one of the three to death, I threw one of my sabres at another one, successfully impaling him, and after blocking several shots form the remaining one, disabled his two blaster pistols with one stroke then beheaded him with the other.

Meanwhile I sensed Naria was in danger. By the time I got to her she had failed to clock one of the blast bolts from one warrior and took the shot in the chest. This warrior was one I would later find out was called Jaster Mereel. As I threw one of my sabres at him he flew out of the way and retreated out of sight but I now was more concerned with the fate of Naria. I was able with the force of will to cause tissue from other area of the body to break down and migrate towards the chest would and reconstruct themselves where they were needed. She was still unconscious from the trauma at the end of this, but she would survive.

The surviving Mandalorians retreated to an escape ship, which hurtled off before anyone could target and destroy it. They had succeeded in killing 51 Jedi that day, compared to 31 Mandalorian casualties.

The Mandalorians announced in a Holonet broadcast that the fact they could take on Jedi in this was a demonstration of what they were capable of, and that there would be further attacks unless the Republic recognised the Mandalorians as a separate Empire.

The Mandalorians would never have any chance in an all-out war against the Republic, especially as only a minority from their worlds were really interested in the cause but the problem was that the loudest public critics were very anti-war and would condemn nearly any Republican response, diminishing their potential to deal with any insurgency.

The Republic rejected the Mandalorians' demands, but only just, but Sidious and I would ensure that the Mandalorians' cause would soon advance no further.

Darth Sidious, 7 years later:

For all that they are great warriors and strategists, some of the Mandalorians are so weak-minded. I had allowed plans to get into their hands that Naboo were preparing an invasion of Concord Dawn to end the war. Naboo had, after all, had a major military upgrade under my instructions. They would conclude at this that I had betrayed them, but I now no longer needed their co-operation.

This would end in a war, which would bring down the Mandalorians, but at the same time weaken the Republic.

As this would result in the deaths of many of their warriors, we had already extracted DNA from many of their greatest warriors such as Jaster Mereel and Jingar Fett, with view to using it to create a clone army with the assistance of the scientists from Kamino, however the one to watch may be Jingar's 14-year-old trainee son, Jango, who seemed to be a new rising star. We would have to make sure he survived this battle.

A cloaked destroyer ship arrived in orbit and I arranged to meet with Jingar Fett to sort out the crisis but he was rather shocked when as soon as my shuttle docked all their monitors malfunctioned and they were even more shocked after I exited the shuttle and within fractions of a second I drew my sabre out and hacked all his bodyguards to pieces, finally beheading him. By the time any other troops had arrived I had already put on Fett's armour, and programmed the shuttle to return to Naboo on autopilot, and I was able to snare their minds to convince them I was indeed Jingar Fett. I instructed them that Naboo had betrayed the Mandalorians, and to start their invasion.

When the invasion arrived, it consisted of a largely atmospheric invasion, consisting mainly of their crystalline warships but also a few new shuttled-sized ships that looked very awkward in shape, but could manoeuvre better than virtually any other ship I had seen.

Our destroyer ship descended near the Krelli village, where we would come off the ship and act as shock troops to attack the Krelli, who the Mandalorians, like Black Sun before them, believed them to be Jedi elite, whereas my own motivation was to wipe out any organisation that would oppose the Sith in any way.

I was surprised that Jaster Mereel had brought Jingar's son with him to fight. Jango was wearing a special youth-sized armour suit, but as yet was not equipped with a jetpack. The Mandalorians started slaughtering everyone in the village but then I knew I couldn't join in this fight too long, as I sensed that tremor in the force that one again my accursed master Plagueis had got wind of this invasion and arrived on the planet to intervene. As I retreated, Jaster saw me trying to escape and seemed to be catching on that I wasn't who I appeared to be. As he started shooting at me I drew my sabre to block the bolts, and then used my jetpack to fly round him and impale him in the back of the neck, and then I flew off towards the hangar bays of the nearest city, Cheelis.

In the hangar bays I changed into a flight suit and boarder on the new N-1 fighters. As I took off I was being pursued by one of their new ships. This fighter would seemingly have no chance against one of their new advance d ships but I was skilled enough to allow to chase me while I analysed it's movements, and it seemed when it was at a certain angle there was a delay in its acceleration, so once it was at this angle I felt behind it and shot out its 4 engines. Once it has lost its engines it was easy to shoot out its shield generators then fire 2 proton missiles at it, disintegrating both it and its crew.

This day would succeed in undermining both sides of the conflict. It would highlight how the Republic was ineffective in dealing with the Mandalorian threat, and the warriors of Naboo. I would once again be able to present myself as a hero in the situation. But considering the years I invested in this plan, it was never as effective as I'd hoped, and it looked as if I would have to turn to manipulating the Commercial Alliance for my main phase of the plan.

_Darth Plagueis:_

The armoured warriors were slaughtering everyone in the village. My only chance would be to save the Kenobi family. I was too late. When I reached their apartment 2 of these cowardly warriors had fired shots into Bail, Jaina, Arna, Jaralla and Obi-wan. Before any more damage could be done I cleaved both soldiers in half but I knew I could only save one of the five wounded, so I chose the younger one, obi-Wan. Another Mandalorian came into the room but before I could react, Obi-Wan made one of the sabres I had left on the floor float into his hand and stabbed the warrior in the chest. For now I let him keep hold of the sabre, as he would need all the protection he could get.

We fought our way through some of the warriors – we encountered far less resistance than we expected – and used an abandoned air taxi to take us to Cheelis. Fortunately we were able to get hold of an unarmed transport because with the Mandalorians being beaten back so quickly, there had been very little in the way of an evacuation. Once again I was able to fool any security system into allowing me to take the ship.

I had to make my decision on the fate of Obi-Wan. After years serving in the Jedi order, albeit as a double agent, I was beginning to think that they were the least of a multitude of evils, so I chose to take him to the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

Obi-Wan had been told by his family, against the Krelli code, about the outside world but he was very startled when he encountered Yoda.

"Hmm, Force sense I in you," Yoda said to him, "but situation familiar to you not. Of Coruscant, what think you?"

"Well, it's big, and doesn't look real," Obi-Wan replied, " and why do you talk backwards?"

"All tales not make sense always when you hear the beginning before the end", Yoda replied, and turned round to me "Trained as a Jedi you wish him? Too old, do you not think him?"

"He has learned much in the Force under the Krelli order." I used the same lie as I used when I convinced them to allow me into the Jedi order.

After a debate shorter than I feared Yoda finally accepted the challenge to take on Obi-Wan as one of the younglings. In time either Yoda or another master would take him on as an apprentice, and form there would fulfil his destiny.


	9. Chapters 8 to 12

**Chapter 8: Iridonia**

_Darth Sidious, Iridonia, the Zabrak homeworld:_

On visiting the Zabrak homeworld Iridonia I came across a young 12-year old Mandalorian trainee called Kaihnar Sarin who was obviously a force sensitive. He was training with an electrostaff, which Mandalorians actually did not use much nowadays, which was almost like using a lightsabre with a 2-ended blade. The weapon was basically a long rod charged up with enough electrical energy that it could even be used against a lightsabre, but it didn't have quite the cutting or deflection power. It would be worth setting things up so that he could eventually become my new apprentice once I had overthrown Plagueis.

A young Jedi called Artin Kallas was already on his way to investigate this training facility n a stolen Mandalorian fighter, and this was where I would take my chance.

He arrived in the early hours of the morning and as I was about to sabre him in the back on his approach to the facility he turned round at the last minute but even then it was over in a few strokes. As he was making a slash from right to left I vaulted over him and sliced him down the middle.

My next step would be to modify his holographic transmitter to display an image of him saying what I was saying. Plagueis could probably have done this using his mind, but I could not let him in on this.

I convinced the Jedi that at this training facility they were developing all sorts of illegal biological weapons. To convince them of this I showed them video film of my own experiments on unfortunate victims on Wayland. I also advised it was occurring in a facility beneath the training ground (which was actually an underground bomb shelter) and that a bombardment would be the only way to destroy it.

And so they came, almost like lambs to the slaughter in reverse. In this case the Jedi would be the ones causing the slaughter. Normally the Jedi are able to sense life but my abilities in masking signs of the force have increased over the years and not only was I able to mask out the signs of the natives' life signs but I was even able to duplicate the life signs of Artin Kallas, but obviously make it seem like he was far away from where the destruction would take place.

_Syfo-Dyas:_

I had to take an unauthorised flight here. Several Jedi pilots had been sent to bombard a biological weapons facility at Iridonia but something told me that this was a trap of some kind. But this mission would be so short I was sure it would be over before I got there.

_Darth Sidious:_

The Jedi fleet descended into the atmosphere and were ready to let loose proton bombs onto the planet's surface, but before I could make any move my remote was picking up the Scimitar's tracking sensor, advising that Plagueis' starfighter was arriving through hyperspace. Surely my master could not have had the foresight to see through this plan? But I had to make haste, and hope that Kaihnar would survive the bombardment. As I boarded the Scimitar I engaged the cloak, then removed my blocking field so that the Jedi would now know there were life signs, and hold off the attack. I would also ensure that my block was still masking the sign that Kaihnar was a force-sensitive. As I took off and prepared to leave via the other side of Iridonia I realised that the bombardment had already begun, but I knew that Darth Maul was very resourceful and had survived.

_Darth Plagueis:_

The Jedi had been duped. There were no weapons of mass destruction being developed here at all and over three quarters of the city's population were wiped out. The Jedi offered to mount a rescue but the citizens demanded that we all leave. Before I left, however, I picked up on something no one else noticed. There was a force sensitive in the wreckage who I would find out was called Kaihnar Sarin. I was surprised none of the other Jedi seemed to pick up on him.

"Your Jedi killed thousands here, and all my family" he hissed, "go now before you get the rest of us all killed or before I get you killed."

At this he activated a double-ended electrostaff weapon and lunged at me, at which I ignited both my red lightsabres to block his attack.

"You are mistaken," I advised him, "I am no Jedi. I am a Sith, the ancient sworn enemies of the Jedi. I came here to try and stop the Jedi attack here, but I was too late. I can take you off this world and show you how to develop your potential".

After a few clashes of weapons he realised that despite his youthful abilities he could not best me on a one to one battle and so he disengaged and started listening. This boy would be dangerous but I needed a new apprentice who would replace Sidious as I knew Sidious was becoming dangerous, and wouldn't have put it past him to have been in some way behind today's disaster.

I took him in the starfighter to one of my hideouts on the planet Felucia. There I trained him for several days in his force abilities and combat techniques. He took two of my safety lightsabres and attached them end-to end so that he could use them as a two-ended weapon similar to the electrostaff.

After a few sessions however a familiar presence made itself felt. The Scimitar had its cloak on but there was no question for me that Sidious had found out about this hideout and had come to see what was going on. But this time I would need to remind who was master and who was apprentice.

"So I see you have taken on a new apprentice without telling me." He observed "Do you not realise that this goes against the Sith strategy that there must only ever be two at any one time".

This time I would need to remind him who was master and who was apprentice. "But our time will be coming son. Once we have control of the Republic and the Jedi order we will have nothing to lose by adding numbers to our ranks."

"I cannot let you do this", Palpatine replied. "It is time to ascertain who the master and apprentice will be".

He ignited his sabre and flew at me in a stabbing motion but I was able to ignite mine and knock his sabre, and Palpatine himself, out of the way before he knew it.

I grabbed my other red sabre off the shelf and swung them both in a scissors motion towards him but before the impact he made one of blue sabre float into his hand off the self and blocked both swords.

All the while Sarin was taking no sides. He was simply observing us, perhaps seeing who was stringer or who had the greater vision for the future.

Sidious put up a good fight but simply wasn't adapted to using two swords and I managed to inflict a couple of flesh wounds. Finally he resorted to using force lightning against me and I blocked it with both sabres crossed, forming a shield. I then fired my own force lighting into his, so it became a contest as to whose power would break through the other's. Eventually the unstoppable force hit the seemingly unmovable object, and Sidious few across the room severely weakened into the wall. I would kill him but not now – I needed to wait until he has risen in the Senate high enough to bring them under control, and then I would take him out when he was no longer needed. I held a sabre to his throat and told him he must never again question my motives, but we compromised and agreed that we would together train Sarin and wait until we had more control on Coruscant before taking on any further adepts.

He would never know however until it was too late, of a time bomb I had set within him. As he slept that night, I manipulated his DNA using the power of thought alone, and arranged it so that if he ever again attempted to use his force lightning ability in strength sufficient enough to kill me, the midichlorians would react in his cells and make his flesh shrivel and burn.

**Chapter 9: A New Creation**

_Darth Plagueis:_

Over the next months I went back to focusing my abilities on life as well as death. I wondered about the possibility about not only saving life using the force but using the midi-chlorians to create life as well. My first step to find willing hosts for such a project would be a stop-off on the planet Kamino, where all sorts of illegal cloning and other reproductive experiments were taking place. I as able to take from one of their project scientists a list of women making all sorts of requests for various types of non-sexual reproduction. The majority of requests were from infertile women, or women with infertile partners, from the planet Tronalisk, on which many types of medical technology including all forms of fertility treatment were illegal. In return I agreed to delete their planet from the Jedi records to prevent any unwanted visitors making enquiries. At first I tried using a Jedi mind trick to make them forget who I was, but they didn't seem to be very susceptible. Despite seeming at first weak minded, they are very dedicated to their own system of ethics.

I spent the weeks after this visit dropping in on some of the candidates from the list. In each case I wore a hooded top so they would not recognise me and advised them their request had been granted. Nine months later every single one gave birth to a healthy child, and made no enquiries, simply grateful that their request had been granted.

My next step would be the creation of a force-sensitive, with the view to create a race of super soldiers dedicated to the Sith cause, so that we would no longer be hindered by the law of there being only two at any one time. I had also planned to use the technology on Kamino to create the clones of this supersoldier. As far as any of the top scientists on Kamino knew, no one had ever tried cloning a Jedi or a Sith to see if the force ability would be passed from the Jedi to the clones.

One name on the list of candidates that stood out was a Miss Shmi Skywalker, who I would guess had split from a violent partner and who had decided to go it alone. She came from a family of explorers, and I thought would have the sense of adventure necessary to bring up a future Sith warrior.

Once again, I invited her anonymously advising her request had been granted and on leaving her home I visualised the midicholrians multiplying relentlessly and eventually occupying a huge amount of the resulting DNA strand.

The division of cells as the boy's embryo developed, as always, a miracle to me. It was so similar to the original creation of the universe, where it would start as a simple cell or a concentration of energy whose destiny was at first unrecognisable until over time would lose it symmetry until it became the miracle creation.

It was disappointing that in the interest of secrecy I could never be present at the birth, but soon after I found out the name of the boy… Anakin.

**Chapter 10: Severed Ties**

_Darth Plagueis:_

I knew now there was more than one life in danger. I have been monitoring Sidious' activities in the Scimitar and I managed to track his course to the planet Tronalisk. He must obviously know about my latest creation. I had simply told him so far that I knew I had the ability to create a force sensitive from the midi-chlorians, not that I actually had done.

I sent a transition to Shmi, claiming to be from the unknown company that supplied her with the unexplained birthing technology, advising her someone had been on the case and that the lives of her and her son were in danger, and she had to leave. Unfortunately I knew this would only be a temporary escape. Sidious would pursue them endlessly until he had found Anakin and carried out whatever fate he believed Anakin should face.

Sidious had also taken Sarin with him, who he had now given the title Darth Maul, and to hide his identity he had convinced him to sport a red and black tattoo pattern on his face so that he could hardly even be identified with his Zabrak origins.

There was no civilized way I could do what I had to do next. At least for now I had to make Anakin disappear. There was no safe haven I could grant him. 2 days after Shmi and her son departed Tronalisk I sent a Rodian bounty hunter off on a quest to capture the two of them and make it seem like they had been killed. I was aware how the slaves in planets such as Tattooine were some of the few citizens who were not officially registered, so I had no choice but to have the two of them handed over to slave traders. At least I was aware of some of the more humane slavemasters, who would rule over them until such time it was safe for me to free them, and show Anakin his destiny.

There was now no question though. Soon Darth Sidious would outlive his usefulness, and would have to go.

**Chapter 11: The Clone Genesis**

_Darth Plagueis_

Regrettably I had still never had chance to pursue the course of creating a clone army of force sensitives, but we had found a template for a very formidable army. Sidious had embezzled funds from Naboo and from the Senate to finance the creation of a clone army using the former Mandalorian Jango Fett, who had now turned bounty hunter. He was a formidable warrior who had even killed Jedi in the past. We would also be experimenting with some other former Mandalorians but for now Fett would be sufficient. I accompanied him to Kamino and he was quite happy to be left there. After all, with Kamino being wiped form all the astronomical archives he could return there from all his missions and not risk being discovered, because as far as anyone was concerned there was no planet there.

Sidious' latest plan was that the army would be ready for some time in the future when we both had high positions within the Republic. Whilst I would become head of the Jedi council Sidious seemed to think he could create a political situation that would see him rise to power as the Republic's Supreme Chancellor. This was really proving how delusional he was becoming, and I would make sure he would never see the day when he could become Supreme Chancellor.

Another interesting development was that the Kaminoans were also able to develop new types of armour derived from Jango Fett's Mandalorian suit. We stuck with a design that looked almost like a white version of Fett's suit but two that we decided to leave for now were a blood red outfit that looked across between the Senate guard uniform and the suits worn by the ancient Mandalorians from thousands of years ago, and an intimidating looking black uniform with a skull-like helmet. These two uniforms we had planned to use for our inner circle of our most loyal followers when the time was right.

_Darth Sidious:_

I had agreed to meet Plagueis on Korriban after he had competed our arrangements with the Kaminoans. Morale was high, as we had taken the first steps in our rise towards complete control of the Republic. But as Sith tradition has always been, the apprentice must take over from the master, and only one of us would survive to see the day. I could not hope to defeat him in open combat, probably not even with the help of Darth Maul. Neither would I wish to have Syfo Dyas either disappearing or being left with a wound that was obviously inflicted by a force-sensitive.

So as he slept that night I enter his room with Darth Maul's old electrostaff and stabbed Plagueis straight through the heart. His sleep was uninterrupted, and he would never wake again, now being no more than a piece of evidence in a murder investigation that would keep the Jedi perplexed for years.

I brought my apprentice Darth Maul the news and as he headed to our hideout on Coruscant, I left for Nemoidia, the core world of the Trade Federation, where I would I begin my task of bringing down the Republic.

Chapter 12: Voices From the Shadows

I only became aware of who I was when hundreds of large disturbances in the force tore into the realm I occupied. I knew that virtually every force-sensitive was being killed at this point. I knew I had to do something to keep the force as a creator of life and not some abstract concept that would sustain some completely symbolic form of existence, which would mean much symbolically, but would be ultimately useless.

There was one who for some time who had so far developed some kind of flattened intelligence, one who was still part of the stream of particles that pervaded this shadow universe, but who had to a certain level kept his coherence – But he was more than this. He was the one who Katana's prophecy realised would bring balance to the force – Master Qui-Gon Jinn. At this stage it seemed I was but a mere machine, trying to remember who I was and what I lived for, but Qui-Gon almost seemed like he had always been here, and knew low this shadow universe worked, and how it would finally influence the world we left behind.

I would come to learn that this realm was a universe that existed alongside, and was in a way part of, the universe we called real. It is a set of extra dimensions separated by a distance of only an atom from the "real" universe. It only became closed off from the universe we were familiar with seconds after the universe's creation, at a time when there were simply too many dimensions in space and time to exist on top of each other. It exchanges forces with the other universe, and it is a place where gravity is stronger, the nuclear forces are weaker, and the living Force is FAR stronger. Despite their separation, each universe exchanged substance with each other and could not exist without the other.

_Qui-Gon:_

We were advanced, in our own way, but we were young, and inexperienced, like the ones who first attempted to form the original Republic. If I would do things better I would. If I could have turned the tide of the Jedi purge at this stage I would have done, but all I can do is make things right from here on. Unfortunately my own awareness cannot move at this stage on the same rate as someone living in the space that we call real.

I was first able to connect to Yoda, and convince him that despite Obi-Wan's failure, he would have to play a part in the Jedi's future return to power. One of the hardest decisions I had to make was on the redemption of the converted Sith Lords. Darth Plagius had already redeemed himself. His own value of Mind had overridden any hatred of life he had. But took a great risk by accepting the engrams of both my old master, Count Dooku, and the one who would have been my student, Anakin Skywalker, who I learned was in a certain way the orphaned son of Plagueis. Frighteningly, my first memory of any conscience after death was when I sensed the hatred in Anakin as he slaughtered the Tusken Raiders in vengeance for the death of his mother.

I was so glad that my own obsession with the preservation of intelligence was valued greater than any revenge against the ones who wronged us.

However, it's said that we sow, we reap, and sometimes, dispassionately, we have to weed, and this is where I leave the final, unpleasant task to our host, Darth Plagius the Wise.

_Darth Plagius:_

If I could only have experienced pleasure this way, maybe my life would have gone differently. They were all celebrating in the forest but my focus was driven in towards on individual, who was still wondering if there was something he could have done sooner or differently, to save his own father. I knew I had to stay out of this celebration, as I felt I'd caused a lot the problems, which they fought against.

The greater problem with the celebration was that there was one individual who had not turned up for any celebration or commiseration. Even though my mind was able to go back and effectively see through his eyes and sense the malice in him as he plotted my downfall and that of the Republic and the Jedi, there no sense of him being here and now. Beyond any logic, it seemed that Cosan Palpatine had disappeared, to terrorise the world of the living once again.

Anakin's son Luke kept in touch with his father but he never did heal the rift between his sister Leia and Anakin.

In the shadow world, even we should not appreciate the return of the dark Lord. Even in death he was able to corrupt the son of Skywalker. But Luke was stronger, he was able to not only defy Palpatine's calling, but to destroy every resurrected clone of Palpatine in the galaxy, and finally bring that shrivelled monster to us.

I could have done anything I wanted with that scum. He betrayed all of us and anyone I ever loved or who was my friend. There was a theory developed from a previous Sith Lord Darth Raltar that if the Netherworld was ever mastered by the Sith it should be used as a permanent place of punishment and torture to anyone they felt deserved it. But it was now my chance to destroy that possibility forever. Like all individuals, Palpatine's personality was a creation of a series of one-dimensional strings. The only merciful thing I could do was to unravel all the strings into a straight line and delete his personality forever.

This was never the way I wanted it. The one thing I ever lived for was to stop the ones close to me from dying, and now here I was erasing my former friend's mind from existence.

As the years went by more and more lost Jedi souls materialise and regained their integrity. The possibilities for the future were something even I could not grasp yet. It was not known whether we could reincarnate ourselves back into the work of the living, or into a different world. Someone though, who may answer those questions was the son that I failed, who turned to the dark side effectively because of the legacy I left behind, from being manipulated by Palpatine into thinking he could learn my ability to prevent his wife Padme from dying.

Over a hundred years after the final death of Palpatine, there were still only Jedi, Krelli, and former Sith. There were no ordinary souls amongst us, but now I would grant Anakin his wish by working with him to bring back the first ever non-Force-sensitive human. For years he concentrated on the movements in the force all around him. Until finally, a voice that had long been silent started speaking once again. A voice that had not spoken since giving birth to two fateful twins, and spoke what she thought would be her last words:

That there was still good in him.

THE END


End file.
